


Glory be to God for Dappled Things

by GiggleSnortBangDead



Series: Love Songs [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Freckles, Kissing, M/M, Masturbation, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 10:24:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19439536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GiggleSnortBangDead/pseuds/GiggleSnortBangDead
Summary: “I like the spots,” Aziraphale said, although the words couldn’t express how he really felt. He couldn’t sayI like the spots because they are on your hands, and I know that they are your hands because they have the spots.





	Glory be to God for Dappled Things

**Author's Note:**

> > Glory be to God for dappled things –  
> For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;  
> For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;  
> Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;  
> Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;  
> And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. 
>> 
>> All things counter, original, spare, strange;  
> Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)  
> With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;  
> He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:  
> Praise him.
> 
> "Pied Beauty" Gerard Manley Hopkins 

It was a marvelously human feature. Aziraphale had thought so from the first time he'd seen them—the spots. _Freckles_. He supposed it shouldn't be a surprise. As a snake, Crawly had dappled scales on his red orange underbelly, so numerous they could neither be patterned nor truly patternless. 

Aziraphale didn't quite notice them until the rain started and Crawly huddled close beside him, sheltered under his wing. The freckles were nowhere near as obvious as the initial shock of Crawly's eyes and his red hair and those big, dark wings. However, they gave Aziraphale greater pause. He couldn't help but consider it as a natural mirror of all creation: complex, ordered, subtle, and curious. 

Even if he had been ugly, Aziraphale realized after having talked on for a while, even if he had been unkind, it would be impossible to hate Crawly. Crawly was freckled. Crawly too had been created; body and soul bestowed upon him by God (with no small amount of love) or by others of God’s creation (with no small amount of purpose). 

It was only when Crawly had left that Aziraphale reminded himself that a demon was created through rejection of God's love. The Fallen had to choose a separation of the self from God. 

And yet, if such a sign of love and connection to the Almighty's design was so ever present and wild, Aziraphale couldn’t understand how that separation was truly fulfilled. Aziraphale couldn’t really understand at all.

* * *

It wasn’t as though such speckled spectacles were difficult to locate. In Mesopotamia, he’d seen a woman covered in freckles, from the tips of her ears to the tops of her toes. Her skin was dark, barely covered by a light robe which was undone in the front. She’d just bathed, she explained while smiling, and she wondered if he might want to come inside. 

He stepped into her home, and she stated her price, which seemed reasonable enough. He wasn’t sure what he expected to do anyway—he’d never made an effort before and didn’t plan to with this woman. But he caught a glimpse of her breast, the spots trickling down her chest and dazzling around her brown nipple, and he thought she wouldn’t mind him just taking a closer peek. 

“You’re a strange one,” she had told him roughly, laughing and naked on her bed while Aziraphale stayed fully clothed, one hand on her warm hip, thumbing over the smoothly dotted skin there. He smiled back at her and asked if it wouldn’t be too much of an issue if he moved his hand to between her legs. 

Moving from her hip to her thigh, Aziraphale guided her knees apart. He felt her with his fingers. “My,” he said as best he could in her language, his own temperature rising. He hazily met her brown eyes, reporting: “It is warm.” He felt something in himself starting to stir, low and heated. He’d known it was supposed to be warm and soft and wet—after all, it was a location of utmost importance when it came to human propagation. However, rationally knowing and feeling with the pads of his fingers were such wildly different beasts. 

She asked if he’d not done this before, if he would like her to guide him. She sat up. Her voice shocked him back to himself, and he slowly pulled his hand back. 

His fingertips were instantly chilled at the loss of her, but the rest of him felt better not trespassing any farther. Besides, her son, a babe in the next room, had just woken up and would certainly be happy to see his mother. So, Aziraphale stood and gave her a tip which must have been more than she was expecting because she told him to stop by again, whenever he liked. “Thank you, dear,” he said, “but I’m really only in town to bless a boat.”

When Crawly happened by later that evening, Aziraphale could barely stand to look at him out of shame. No one had bothered to tell Aziraphale anything about the arc, and it was only when he’d talked to Noah himself that he’d gotten any sort of information about the impending flood or the “rain bow.” Now, he felt himself wanting to confess that he’d been the one to secure the arc’s voyage, as it felt a very wicked thing to have done. But, he knew his momentary doubts would remain only momentary if he kept them to himself and didn’t start rattling on to a demon. 

The next morning, when he was home, safe and dry but still feeling _strange_ , he manifested a sex, soft and supple like the woman’s had been, but all his own for himself to spread and rub and fondle, getting used to it and the sweet little nub God had designed with no other purpose than because it was nice. He thought generally about freckled expanses of skin and how warm that skin might be under his hands. He considered what it might be like to have another’s hands, enacting another’s will, upon his sex. It would be nice, he imagined, to have a beloved to gaze up at and tremble beneath and, in turn, make tremble. 

It was only when he was lazily tasting himself afterwards that he realized the woman and her son would have drowned by then.

* * *

If he could help it, Aziraphale didn’t dwell on Christ’s Passion. No one involved in the event—not the young Lord, nor his mother, nor his sentencer, nor the Roman soldiers, nor a single one of the onlookers— escaped its cruelty. Many participants would be punished for playing the role assigned to them by God. If he thought about the whole ordeal too long, the ineffability of it all became harder to accept. And, besides, it was hardly worth fussing over; crucifixions always brought suffering. 

Sometimes he couldn’t help but remember something, though. He figured if he should have to recall anything, he would best be served by the memory of the gratitude he’d felt toward Crowley for being there beside him and the gained knowledge that Crowley had a freckle on the lobe of his ear.

* * *

Looking at him in his black toga and gold laurels, Aziraphale could think of one thing only: what did his shoulders look like? Truly, he was curious about all of it—his chest, his stomach, his thighs and knees—but he wasn't so naive to not understand that such an extreme curiosity was crude. 

He glanced at Crowley's hands, his fingers curled around a shelled oyster. Soft, brown spots dotted the skin, lightly, up to the second knuckle on some fingers. Did they get darker in the sun? Aziraphale took a drink of wine. There was so much sun in Rome. 

When Crowley tipped his head back to suck slippery meat from its bed, Aziraphale zeroed in on his pale, swallowing throat, the shimmer on his upper lip as he put the shell down, the way his eyes creasing made the freckles near his eyelashes shift—and Aziraphale was suddenly and painfully reminded where the fascination originated from.

"I'm not sure I understand the appeal," Crowley said.

"Try another, would you?" Aziraphale asked, offering him a second without thinking. He smiled, and Crowley reluctantly took from his hand what was offered. 

This time, Aziraphale tried to follow the oyster as it slipped into Crowley's mouth, scheduling any mortification over his untoward behavior to be dealt with at a later, Crowley-less moment.

* * *

Aziraphale had welcomed Crowley into his rooms, Crowley quipping a short “So when you said we weren’t having this conversation, you meant we weren’t having this conversation in the bog” as he stepped in and looked around. It had taken unreasonably long for Aziraphale to get out of his own armor, as he insisted on having his squire do it. Crowley snapped his own off the second the attendant was out of the room, and Aziraphale had to temper a wave of ridiculous jealousy. He had periods during which he became overgenerous with miracles, and Upstairs usually noticed. Aziraphale did hate being reprimanded, if only because the attention could make his associating with Crowley more problematic. However hard he tried to squash that jealousy and any other wayward emotion, and their darker moral implications, he was undone enough by Crowley’s uncovered form that he drank heavier than he had intended when he’d first invited the demon for dinner. 

“And have you heard about Sir Gawain!” Aziraphale piped, smiling brightly. It was hardly gossip when everyone already knew. There was a heat blaring across his cheeks, down his throat, but it all felt good natured and pleasant. Crowley seemed to be as drunk as he, if not more so. Maybe Aziraphale was leaning in more than necessary, but his posture was straight and he’d kept his hands decidedly to himself. It was nice and unsuspicious. 

“He’s the little one? The, uh, nephew.” Crowley did like to fill a space, his arm thrown over the back of the settee and his feet kicked out. If it were anyone else, Aziraphale might have felt imposed upon. Crowley smelled good, though, which was more than he could say for any of the other knights he knew. It was hard to place the scent, exactly, although Aziraphale gave it his all, covertly inclining his face toward the wrist nearest him. 

“Oh, no,” he said, taking Crowley’s hand in his own suddenly. “They’re fading a little, aren’t they?”

“What are you doing?” Crowley hissed, tearing his hand away and bringing it to his chest like he’d been hurt.

“Oh!” Aziraphale’s thoughts stopped dead—or rather he hadn’t really been thinking. It took him a moment to put an apology together. Within those few moments, he sobered significantly and became deeply embarrassed. “Oh, I must say I am so terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to, ah, startle you. Or make you uncomfortable. But, that was very rude of me. It’s only, you see, I was surprised.” 

“Surprised?” Crowley’s tongue shook the word. The fingers of his untouched hand rubbed at the afflicted, pale skin. 

“Well, yes. Your spots,” Aziraphale tried to explain, “They were darker. Last time I saw.”

Crowley looked at the top of his hand. “My spots?” he repeated. It was as if he’d never noticed his hands before. He put them down in sudden distaste. “It’s ruddy good if they’re fading then.”

Aziraphale felt nerves wash over him. He put on his smile, trying to convey complete acceptance as he said, “I have a mole on my chest.” Crowley’s eyes shot at him and then flickered down to wherever the hidden blemish might be. Aziraphale pointed to where it was under his linen tunic, a few inches below his nipple. He’d noticed it on accident some years back and only vaguely admitted to himself that it made him happy because it reminded him of God’s other marked creatures. Sometimes, he wondered if, like the sex he now kept idly between his legs, it had manifest out of desire. “I like the spots,” he said, although the words couldn’t express how he really felt. He couldn’t say _I like the spots because they are on your hands, and I know that they are your hands because they have the spots_. 

Because, after all, he’d seen countless beings with freckles by then—angels, even. When he received his first face-to-face scolding for excess miracles from the Authority Camael (written warnings had proven ineffective), Aziraphale had been pleased to see his face and body covered in hundreds of them. He’d seen freckles on kings and shepherds, on the elderly and children alike, on the pink bellies of pigs and dogs. While all were fabulous and adored, seeing those beauties had never surpassed the sensation of looking at Crowley’s face. And Aziraphale had been aware for some time that it was because each dotted bit of that face was unique to Crowley: singular, and different. 

But instead of trying to say any of this, he reached out very deliberately so that Crowley would not be shocked again. He took Crowley’s hand in his own and he met it halfway, leaning in to press a tight kiss on his knuckles. 

Crowley’s inhale of breath was sharp. “You shouldn’t,” he said. Aziraphale looked up and watched him swallow, his throat clicking. He didn’t pull his hand away, though. 

“I do it to Arthur all the time,” Aziraphale explained, so that Crowley would not get the wrong impression. He was not placing anyone before God in the action, but he was perhaps placing his king and Crowley above other, lesser things. “It’s what’s done.” 

“I know it’s what’s done,” Crowley snapped. Aziraphale had to remind himself that Crowley had his own liege, supposedly; although as the Black Knight, Crowley kept this hidden. He would have seen other knights pledge fealty; Aziraphale couldn’t imagine Crowley doing it himself. Maybe the idea of a master was too perverse for the demon. Aziraphale let go of his hand, and Crowley’s face gave nothing away except a deep, unyielding tension. There was a struggle. He looked like he was about to be sick. 

“How about we just forget the whole thing?” Aziraphale returned to his prim, strict posture. He couldn’t tell if he felt embarrassed or guilty. Certainly, he would not forget what he’d done. It wasn’t the first time that he’d been overwhelmed by his own emotion and failed to see an inevitable outcome. If he did not carefully reflect on his missteps, it was likely to not be the last time either. 

Crowley snatched Aziraphale’s fingers from his lap and pulled them to his lips, pressing his slightly wet mouth against the back of his hand. It was hardly a kiss, and Crowley dropped his hand as quick as he’d taken it. 

“Ah, but,” Aziraphale cleared his throat once he could speak. Heat was creeping down his neck, down his chest, past his silly little mole, into his stomach—down to where he was starting to be wet. “You mustn’t do that. If your side were to find out, you’d be in terrible trouble. I – ” there was nothing more to say, though. Crowley’s lips were tight, and he looked furious. “Really, I went too far by starting the whole thing. Can you forgive me?” 

“No, I can’t.” Crowley said, which was to be expected. Forgiveness was not a very useful trait for the demonic. But he wasn’t unkind about it. And later when Aziraphale laced their fingers together, he allowed his perfect, freckled hand to be held.

* * *

The next time he saw Crowley, and the times after that, Aziraphale noted the dots on his hands stood out, dark and neat. Whether this was because Crowley got tired of wearing armor and spent less time in gauntlets or because he was browning them in the sun purely for the appearance, Aziraphale was delighted. Crowley’s face had also darkened, a little, flecked behind the sunglasses he wore.

“I have to be careful around you, you know?” Aziraphale explained cheerily. 

“Why’s that, angel?” After the Edinburgh trip, Aziraphale had talked his demonic associate into coming down the pub with him. A second thank you for the work with _Hamlet_. Crowley seemed unmoved by the sentiment, but Aziraphale had always found gratitude to be a particularly pleasurable and easy good deed to perform. Crowley was a few drinks in, sprawling on the bench and letting his glasses slide a little. He asked, “Do I make you want to do bad things?” 

“You make me want to do good things for you,” he said. “I imagine that cancels itself off.” 

“Don’t say things like that.” Crowley looked mortified. He looked around, as if he were worried someone might have heard. 

“I’ve been trying to tell you,” Aziraphale said. His foot crept under the table, touching against Crowley’s ankle.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Crowley asked, low. When Aziraphale took another drink, his foot curling around his calf, Crowley leaned in, hissing venomously, “ _What do you think you’re doing?_ ”

“Nothing, really. Should I stop?’

“It’s not nothing, and yes.”

Aziraphale set his foot solidly on the ground, feeling put out. He’d seen people do it, and they always seemed to be having fun. He’d wanted to have Crowley look at him the way young men look at their lovers. It would be particularly attractive on his face, and Aziraphale had been asking for it as clearly as he could, under the circumstances. “I’m sorry, dear,” he managed. “Are you worried about getting caught for it?” _Or is it me? Am I the worst of all?_

Crowley didn’t look like he was going to respond. Didn’t look like he had the faculties or the language to express what the problem was. “I can be discreet?” Aziraphale offered, dying for an answer. He longed so terribly to know what Crowley looked like under his clothes and to be held. He was nearly out of his mind for it, having wanted for such an extended period of time.

“Do you know what could happen to you?” Crowley asked, voice cold. “I won’t have you Fall just because you’re getting bored.” 

Aziraphale blinked. He didn’t know where to start with that, his stomach souring around the drink. “It’s not… purely recreational, what I was offering.” 

“Even worse, then. I only fuck recreationally.” Crowley stated. 

From head to toe, Aziraphale was being boiled alive. “Ahh,” he tried to say, but he felt his insides quivering. He’d named it—the Act—and in doing so reinforced his power over Aziraphale. He could smell his own cunt getting wet. Could Crowley smell it too? If he could, why did he insist on being so stubborn? “I don’t – I don’t mind that.” 

Crowley looked disgusted. Or maybe horrified. Maybe some third, undiscovered emotion that encompassed every vile feeling Aziraphale could only dream of feeling toward Crowley. He couldn’t quite tell. His thoughts were unable to surface, and he blinked a few times to try and clear his head. 

“You have no idea what could happen.” Crowley pushed his chair back to create some more distance. Maybe he could smell Aziraphale’s quim, and it repulsed him. Maybe he found Aziraphale's body ugly. If he would only say so, Aziraphale could change anything for him. “You can’t be this stupid.” 

“Frightfully stupid, darling.” Aziraphale sighed. He was getting his blush under control; he just had to make sure he didn’t think about the Words of the Act or of Crowley’s mouth. He flashed him a smile after downing his drink. “Forget the whole thing.” He made a motion to the barmaid for another round, and he kept his hands and feet to himself.

* * *

“Ah, hello—I mean, _bonjour, Monsieur. Je voudrais un crêpe avec_ , ah, how do you say peaches?” Aziraphale turned from the unimpressed waiter to Crowley. 

“Not only did you come down here dressed like a libertine – ” 

“A libertine!” Aziraphale cawed, looking to their French-speaking waiter for some sort of solidarity. “I should think not!” 

“ – but you also can’t remember your French.” Luckily Crowley did, and he ordered for them. 

“It’s not my fault.” Aziraphale said. “I haven’t spoken French for, oh, 200 years, and the language has changed. It’s hard to keep up with!” The waiter came back with two café au laits. “Oh, _merci beaucoup_!”

“You have access to all knowledge in creation,” Crowley rubbed his brow, a gesture implying that Aziraphale was causing mental discomfort, which would only occur through an effort to understand. Aziraphale liked the gesture, because of that implication.

“Yes, well, I rarely spend any time here. By the time I come back, they’ll have changed it all again anyway.” 

“Two hundred years,” Crowley pulled back to that thread suddenly. “You don’t mean Joan, do you?” And when Aziraphale smiled, looking unapologetic, Crowley hissed, “You haven’t come to France since _Joan of Arc_?”

“Joan was a remarkable human,” he said, sipping some coffee. “Only 19.” 

“Did she end up with your people or mine?” Crowley asked. “I remember no one down here was sure at the time, what with her getting excommunicated.” 

“Well, Heaven’s always liked a soldier.” It wasn’t enough of an answer, but it had to suffice as their waiter brought out and plopped down the plate, retreating before he was subjected to more subpar French. Aziraphale hardly noticed, mouth watering and feeling unnoticed tension in his shoulders draining. He took a bite, nearly shuddered, and looked directly at Crowley so that someone might know the perfection in his mouth. “Such a shame you don’t eat,” he drew out.

“I do sometimes,” Crowley said, indignant. He reached forward as if to show him, dipping his finger in the sweet cream and scooping it up into his mouth. He hummed around it, eyes drifting shut. Aziraphale was promptly reminded that Crowley and he were almost always across from each other, at a perfect vantage point to see each other’s mouth and to never touch. 

What a pity, he nearly said aloud. It was hard for him to remember that he was unwanted in that way, especially when everything Crowley did made him want even more. He’d spent nearly 50 years without a sex, but it hadn’t helped. He’d still ached deliciously and then painfully whenever Crowley allowed him to touch his hand (or, _oh!_ , his wrists) or whenever he caught the warmth of Crowley's breath as he leaned in to tell a joke. 

At least with the queint, he could touch it and get some sort of relief, which he did once he was home. Crowley had walked him to the door, pressed a kiss on his cheek. He had almost looked like he wanted to come inside. When Aziraphale asked him, he had said maybe some other time. Aziraphale imagined some other time, and he sated himself.

* * *

He got a dog. He didn’t mean to. It was just that Crowley and he had a fight, and then Crowley stopped coming round. When Aziraphale heard that he’d been asleep later, he couldn’t be sure if the argument and the nap were related. At the time, he pushed the whole ordeal out of his mind. And she had been just a little puppy left alone by the storefront. 

At first he’d left the poor thing alone, letting someone else claim her. No one did, and it was cold out. What else could he do? He’d taken her inside, cleaned her with warmed water, watched as the sad thing shook. “Where is your master?” he cooed. “Where is your mother?” 

When he dried the dog, she licked his hand. She sat at his feet as he ate, eating from her own, small, repurposed dish. She slept at his feet and by his side, padding behind him around the bookshop. He named her Gabby—a tiny joke for himself that he imagined Crowley would have blown out of moral proportion.

The puppy didn’t grow much, being some sort of terrier. Her fur was wiry, brown and black brindled. She had big eyes, an under bite, white whiskers on one side of her snout, and black on the other. A marvel of a dog and smarter than any Aziraphale had ever known, Gabby was entirely charming. She hated getting her tiny paws wet. She was a fussy eater. She was swifter than a bird. Aziraphale was quite certain, the more time he spent with her, that there had never been a more beautiful dog and that she had in some way been sent to him. They did everything together.

“She follows your everywhere?” Mr. Greensborough, one of the gentlemen from the club asked during dinner, looking a little aghast. 

“Well, not here.” Aziraphale managed to look mild.

“Ezra, you must bring your little princess one of these days. I hear so much about her, but you won’t share her with the rest of us!” Edward Ballard, their host, was strapping, with a thick mustache, dimpled chin, and spotless skin. A blond bachelor in at least his 40s, he had the gaiety of a schoolboy. He had something nice to say about everyone. His hands were soft, his nailbeds clean, and he worked in a bank. Aziraphale wasn’t sure what part of this contributed most to his growing attraction. 

Maybe it was simply that Mr. Ballard liked Aziraphale, that he thought Aziraphale was beautiful, and that Aziraphale thought he was beautiful in return. He might have invited Mr. Ezra Fell to sup alone if Aziraphale hadn’t hesitated upon being asked over. Fast as a fox, Ballard had barreled on and explained he was planning to ask some other men from the club. It ended up being Mr. Greensborough and Mr. Duff: a bore and an elderly gentleman who started to drift off as soon as they’d retired to the drawing room—no doubt a combination of the brandy and Greensborough’s droning on about summering in Florence and the queer Italian customs. He mistook Duff’s nodding for agreement. 

“Ezra, would now be a good time for me to show you that first edition? I have it in the study.” Ballard smiled like he’d eaten the sun. Aziraphale very well might have swooned. Being so attended to was a wonder. 

He followed Ballard from the drawing room to his personal study. He followed, knowing full well he was being led to Ballard’s mouth. He was being led to be kissed. To kiss. 

Kissing was not new. He’d kissed many times. He’d kissed in fealty, kissed brows to comfort and cheeks to greet. He’d even kissed on the mouth before; it had been the way of the times. But the way Ballard shut the door behind them, and his eyes in the low light of the cozy study, clarified that this would not be a type of kiss Aziraphale had ever experienced before. He tingled from his hands to his knees, and when Ballard crowded against him, took he cheek against his palm, Aziraphale had to bite his lip. 

“Will you ever accept my invitation and come dine with me alone?” he asked, his masculine voice soft and low. His breath was warm, and it smelled sweet and overwhelming. 

“You could get in a lot of trouble, Mr. Ballard,” Aziraphale said.

“Edward,” he corrected. Edward would have known all about the trouble. All Oscar Wilde-types knew quite well. Aziraphale was once again nearly dizzy at the lengths humans would go to for love. He wasn’t sure it was commendable to want a love like that, especially for Edward, who was one of the most upstanding and decent of men.

“You could get in a lot of trouble, Edward,” Aziraphale said again, anyway. 

“Would you tell on me?” Edward teased, knowing he would not. Everyone at the club seemed to know they could trust Aziraphale when it came to the Greek vice. 

Aziraphale gripped Edward’s elbow. “Your servants. Mr. Greensborough.” He was feeling quite undone. He wished they’d stopped closer to the desk, so he might have something else to fall against instead of Edward’s chest. “If something were to happen to you, my dear,” he said, carefully light. 

“I would like to take that risk, with you. You are so beautiful.” Edward leaned in. Aziraphale, hot all over, let him lean in. _Oh_ , he thought with some sorrow and no small amount of delight, _I will ruin you for love_.

That night they kissed, warmly and for a long while until Aziraphale reminded him that he did have other guests who required tending. 

Aziraphale returned the invitation the next week, having Edward come by the bookshop. 

“Hello, old girl,” Edward said to Gabby as she trotted over. Aziraphale looked on with pride as she sniffed and licked his hand, allowing herself to then be scratched. “Never thought you’d be the type for such a mangy mutt,” Edward said, looking up with a wink. 

“She’s not mangy!” Aziraphale nearly tore her away for the insult. 

Edward laughed. “She’s beautiful. How old is she?” 

Aziraphale had to think. He left for the kitchen, calling from the other room, “I suppose I’ve had her for fifteen years now.” 

“You always talk about her like she were a puppy.” Edward straightened out. “Will you get another dog after her?” 

“After her?” Aziraphale repeated absently, fussing around in the back room to put tea on. 

“Yes, chap.” Edward came to stand in the doorway, to watch Aziraphale putter for the matching tea set he hadn’t used since Crowley last came by.

It struck Aziraphale what he meant, when Gabby slowly padded in and laid down. He’d noticed her face getting whiter, and she didn’t have the energy she’d once had, but that hadn’t bothered him. Now, he looked at her. She was old, panting on the floor like her walk from one room to the next had exhausted her. 

“When she dies,” Aziraphale said. He’d known. Of course he’d known. He’d just stopped thinking about that a few years back. She looked up at him, blinking slowly. She loved him, and he loved her, and he felt his entire chest begin to ache ferociously. He stared at her, frozen, his hand trembling. What had he brought into his life? 

He looked at Edward sharply, needing him gone. “I think you had better go,” he said. It was rude. He needed to be rude and get him out of the bookshop. 

“What?” Edward gawped. “I didn’t mean to – to offend – ”

“No, you haven’t. I just remembered I can’t do this. Not today,” he said. 

“Perhaps I can come back another day?” Edward asked. Aziraphale nodded and escorted him out. Edward would not return. 

A year later, Gabby did die. Aziraphale shuttered the shop, and he did not go out for a long time. The year following, Edward married a nice young lady. His need for companionship and her need for upward mobility created a perfect arrangement. Aziraphale stayed away from gentlemen’s clubs for a good while.

* * *

As Aziraphale stored the prophetic books back in his collection, Crowley snapped his hat onto the coatrack. Crowley followed behind him into the kitchen, sitting at the table while Aziraphale put the stove on for tea and then joined him. Crowley’s eye found Gabby’s unmoved dog dish, snorting and turning to tease about it. Aziraphale smiled, but something must have been off because Crowley snapped his mouth shut. 

“Can’t believe I left that out,” Aziraphale murmured, moving to get up and put the dish away once and for all. Crowley took and lifted the hand that had braced on the table for balance. Crowley leaned in, and he put his warm cheek against Aziraphale’s knuckles. Aziraphale sat back down when Crowley shifted, pressing his forehead against that soft, plump hand. The pressure was hard, like Crowley was trying to it dig in. 

“I am asking you,” he was begging, “for a favor.” 

“This again!” Aziraphale tugged his hand back, but Crowley kept it gripped tight. He looked up though, and Aziraphale was grateful the sunglasses had been left on. He couldn’t bear to see how Crowley looked in that moment, if he hated him. However, the hold on his hand was getting tight and painful. _That_ was good. 

“What happened to your obsession with gratitude? Did you lose it while I was gone?” 

Aziraphale thought about what he’d lost while Crowley was gone. “I’m not interested in helping you destroy yourself.” Crowley had to live as long as Aziraphale did, or Aziraphale would simply shake apart. Even if Crowley hated him and left for years and years, Aziraphale would never allow him to blink out of existence. That horrible covetous sensation, which had been with him maybe since the first time he’d laid eyes on the serpent, was not good. He hoped the tight grip viced around his hand crushed his bones, mangled his fingers, and gave Crowley some sort of pleasure. And then he hoped Crowley would give up the whole suicide idea. 

Crowley let go, softly, though. “Fine,” he said. He straightened back in the chair.

“Fine?” Aziraphale repeated, hope poking open like a sundrop. “You’ll give up the whole thing?” 

“It’s the last you’ll hear about it,” Crowley answered. 

Aziraphale nearly kissed him. He nearly reached across the table, fisted his collar, and pressed a kiss against every freckle on Crowley’s face and ears and neck. Instead he said, “Oh, I am so glad to hear that, my dear. Yes, let’s put all of that behind us.” 

“Let’s do.” Crowley said, and there was something harsh in his tone. Aziraphale ignored it, the tea kettle starting to shrill. It was all good enough.

* * *

In hindsight, Aziraphale probably should have remembered that Crowley never gave up matters so easily. It also meant Aziraphale would need to pull back if he were to be salvageable ~~if~~ **when** Crowley offed himself.

* * *

Friendship was such a jolly thing. Aziraphale thought so whenever he saw Crowley’s face, every time he got a peek of his eyes or his throat. How wonderful it was to be friends, he assured himself when he looked at Crowley’s hands and wondered what his fingers tasted like. When Aziraphale was trapped in that dreadful car of his, savaged by the scent of Crowley and his sweat and his body and his clothes and the colognes he’d tried over the years, and he felt almost nauseous from how badly he wanted _something_ , he figured the situation was actually rather good. It was such a marvel to have a friend.

**Author's Note:**

> anybody see the _I Think You Should Leave_ sketch with the guy who's so horny his stomach hurts.... huge inspiration for this fic lol
> 
> Originally, this was supposed to just be a horny fic about how much I like David Tennant's freckles. Obviously this got away from me, and there'll be more to this series. Leave some kudos or comments, because it would make me feel good. Love to you all!
> 
> (kick it with me on [tumblr](http://gigglesnortbangdead.tumblr.com))

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Glory be to God for Dappled Things [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20237506) by [pinafortuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinafortuna/pseuds/pinafortuna)




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